Ted and Fred are getting married!

Well, now we know why Democrats are holding their 2004 convention in Boston: That’s where all the gays and lesbians are getting married!

The Massachusetts Supreme Court made it official. In a long-awaited 4-3 decision, the court ruled there was no justification for the state to deny gay couples the same legal status that straight couples enjoy. And it gave the Legislature 180 days – not to decide whether to do it, but to figure out how to do it.

It’s an echo of what happened in Vermont, with one big difference. The Massachusetts court went even further than Vermont. It ordered the Legislature to authorize the same civil marriage licenses for all couples. For the first time in the United States, the court endorsed “gay marriage.”

And you might think the sky is falling. Conservatives roared that this was nothing less than the end of Western Civilization as we know it. Republicans in Congress renewed their cry for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. President Bush condemned the decision.

And most Democrats running for president in 2004, starting with Massachusetts’ own John Kerry, ran for cover, insisting that, although they supported “civil unions” for gay couples, they were against gay marriage.

Granted, this is a blockbuster decision that, for most Americans, may be hard to accept. But once you read the decision and pray over it, you realize the court is right. This is not the end of the world. This is one more step in beginning to live up to the Constitution. The court could not have ruled any other way.

The four Massachusetts justices – three of whom, by the way, were appointed by Republican governors – did not say that the Catholic Church, Southern Baptists, or any other faith, has to change its teaching and start marrying gays and lesbians. The ruling has nothing to do with religious ceremonies at all. It only concerns civil ceremonies.

The only question before the court was whether the state could “deny the protections, benefits and obligations conferred by civil marriage to two individuals of the same sex who wish to marry.” And the court concluded, correctly, that it could not. Under the law, there is no way for the state to justify treating some Americans as second-class citizens for any reason: sex, religion, race or sexual orientation.

Consider. Two couples stand before the mayor or justice of peace. Both love each other. Both make a commitment to support each other and share a life together. But only one couple, Ted and Alice, receive all the legal benefits and protections of the state. The other couple, Ted and Fred, do not. Only because they happen to be of the same sex? That is pure discrimination. That is un-American. The state simply cannot do that.

As the Rev. Al Sharpton, alone among Democratic candidates, recognizes, it’s not a moral issue, it’s a human rights issue. “Asking about gay marriages is like asking about black marriages,” Sharpton said even before the ruling. “Gays and lesbians are human beings. You can’t support civil unions but not marriages. That’s like saying you can shack up but not get married. Either you’re for human rights or you’re not.”

There are two ways to approach the Massachusetts court decision: the un-American way or the American way. The un-American way, which Tom Delay hopes to make a wedge issue in 2004, is a constitutional amendment prohibiting marriage between gays. In other words, strike those meaningless words about “equal protection of the laws” and replace them with “except for gays.” The Founding Fathers would roll over in their graves.

The American way, true to the Constitution, is to accept what we stand for: equal rights for all. In civil ceremonies, the state extends the blessing of civil marriage to all couples, gay or straight. In religious ceremonies, the various churches follow their faith. Some will recognize gay marriages, some will not. That way, the state forces nothing on the churches. And the churches do not force themselves on anybody else. God bless America.

One final point: Why are straight people so uptight about gay people getting married anyway? Given the high divorce rate among straight couples today, if two gay people pledge to get together and stay together, we should be applauding them, not stoning them.